


so be my strange delight

by shinealightonme



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Altered Mental States, Caretaking, Established Relationship, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Post-Canon, belligerent affection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22661641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/pseuds/shinealightonme
Summary: "Relax, Parrish, I will make the huge sacrifice of driving somewhere in a car with you," like that isn't how they spend half their time. "I'm not going to miss all the stupid shit you do when you're high."
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 79
Kudos: 1046





	so be my strange delight

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an anon who asked for Adam being teary-eyed and fucked up (in a good way) about his and Ronan's relationship. I got this prompt at the same time that a bunch of people I know were getting their wisdom teeth out, and for whatever reason my brain connected those two dots.
> 
> This is set ambiguously post-TRK and takes absolutely nothing about CDTH into account, don't try to reconcile this with new canon in any way, shape, or form.

"What are you doing on March 16th?" Adam asks as soon as he picks up the phone.

Ronan says "you," because like hell does he know what he'll be doing on a specific day six weeks from now, and because that's a safe bet. He does know that day is during Adam's spring break. Those dates are burned into his brain.

"Ha," Adam says, unamused. "Seriously, do you have any plans? I need to know if you're free that day."

Ronan consults his appointment book, which doesn't take very long, since it doesn't exist. "I'm free. Why?"

"I'm getting my wisdom teeth removed and I need to know if you can drive me."

Ronan is getting better at conversations with words like _student loans_ and _policy renewal_ and _emotional awareness_. That doesn't mean it's fair to ambush him with adulthood. "Huh?"

"I'm having surgery," Adam says, annoyed about having to repeat himself, except that's not repetition, that's an entirely new and terrifying way of putting it. Ronan still hasn't processed _wisdom teeth_ , so now he gets to be confused _and_ worried. "I'm going to need a ride, and then I'll be laid up for a few days afterward."

"You're planning a really wild spring break, huh?"

"I don't _want_ to schedule it during break," Adam says, "but I can't afford to miss those days during the school year."

"But you can afford to worry about it six weeks ahead of time?" 

"If I don't schedule soon the surgeon will book up and I'll have to wait until summer. I've already put it off longer than I should have. I just -- I need to know you can drive me. I won't be able to drive myself after." The line goes completely silent. "I won't be able to take care of myself after."

Oh. That's what Adam needs six weeks to prepare for. Not finding a ride. Being dependent.

"Relax, Parrish, I will make the huge sacrifice of driving somewhere in a car with you," like that isn't how they spend half their time. "I'm not going to miss all the stupid shit you do when you're high."

"Perfect," Adam deadpans. "I can't wait."

-

_are they impacted_

_are what impacted by what_

_your bonus teeth_  
_the shitty ones they're yanking out of your head_

_yes my wisdom teeth are impacted_  
_that's why I'm paying someone to yank them out of my head_

_wait insurance doesn't cover it_  
_what is your crappy school even good for_

_Jesus Lynch it was a figure of speech_  
_yes it's covered_  
_they hurt and they're a health hazard, it's not like it's a cosmetic procedure_

_you never said they hurt_

_it's almost like jaw pain isn't very fun and I don't want to dwell on it_

_you could have told me_

_it's just been lately_  
_I take some Advil and ignore it_  
_Lynch_  
_okay my lab is starting I have to go_  
_LYNCH_  
_are you seriously ignoring me because I didn't tell you my wisdom teeth were bugging me_

_no_  
_I couldn't type because I fell and broke all my fingers_  
_I just didn't think it was worth telling you about_

_god you're such a brat_

_would a brat have just bought ten cartons of ice cream_

_yeah that sounds exactly like something a brat would do_  
_why are you stockpiling ice cream_

_this website says you can't eat solid food after your surgery_  
_ergo we live off ice cream_

_or other non-solid non-ice cream foods_

_no just ice cream_

_unacceptable_  
_you better have real food when I get there_

_or what_  
_it's not like you'll be able to go anywhere_  
_you won't even be able to drive_

_I will walk into town_  
_bleeding from the gums the whole way_

_fuck Parrish that's hardcore_  
_now I wish I hadn't bought all this soup_

-

"Explain yourself," Adam says. Really, if he's so annoyed by _lack of clarity_ then he ought to say what it is he needs explained. Although Ronan has a pretty good idea. He got the delivery alert about an hour ago for the crate of pineapple juice he sent to Adam's address.

"You're supposed to drink it."

"I gave you the benefit of the doubt that it was for drinking and not for some horrifying other purpose. _Why_ am I supposed to drink it?"

"Pineapples reduce swelling."

Adam sighs. "If this is a joke, I can already tell you the punch line is not good enough to justify this much set up."

"For your _mouth,_ Parrish. So your face doesn't blow up like a chipmunk's after they rip your teeth out."

"For my -- Lynch, that's not for another month."

"Yeah, you drink some every day and then by the time you get them out you've got. Pineapple shit in your blood." This would be way more convincing if he remembered any of the proper words for anything. He wishes he'd left that tab open on his computer. He doesn't think Adam would be willing to wait while he digs through forty pages of Google hits on _how to survive wisdom tooth surgery_ to find it again.

"There's no way that's a thing," Adam mutters. "I have to drink this stuff every day?"

"Come on, it can't be that gross." Ronan has no idea how gross it is. Probably _very_ , if it's good for you.

"I haven't tried it yet. I was hoping this was an accident and I could send it back." He still _could_ send it back and they both know it. The fact that he doesn't say he will makes Ronan smile. "I'm just assuming it's gross because a hippie told you it has magical properties."

"It's not magic, it's chemicals and shit. That's science."

"Oh, well," Adam says. "If it's _science_."

-

"Are you getting knocked out or laughing gas?" Ronan asks.

"What?"

"Are they knocking you out before they yank your teeth?"

"...Ronan, it's one o'clock in the morning."

"Oh, please. You have a test tomorrow."

"So I need my sleep."

"But you weren't asleep, were you?"

Adam refuses to answer. Coward. "I'm getting general anesthesia."

"Okay. Good."

"Why is that good," Adam asks, wary. "Why do you have an opinion on this?"

"It just _is_ good. You don't need to be awake for that shit."

"Oh my god, Lynch, did you stay up until one a.m. reading surgical horror stories online?"

"I'm trying to be informed, okay?"

"No, not okay. You don't need to know any more about this. You need to know _less_. The next time you call me about my teeth I'm hanging up."

"Fine," Ronan snaps. He hangs on for a moment, to give Adam a chance to hang up on him now if he's so pissed off.

Adam doesn't hang up on him. His voice is soft when he says, "turn off the computer, okay? Go outside and look at the stars. Do something nice so you don't dream about surgery tonight."

 _Why do you think I called you?_ "I will if you stop studying and go to bed."

"Deal."

-

Adam doesn't get to eat breakfast that morning, so Ronan doesn't eat either. The gesture goes unappreciated -- Adam doesn't say much of anything on the ride into town -- and then Adam gets to go be unconscious while Ronan has to sit in the waiting room thinking about how hungry he is. He ducks out to the coffee shop across the street, although not before making the receptionist promise him that the surgery isn't anywhere near done, and then he runs back convinced that something went wrong while he was out.

Nothing did go wrong, so now he's bored _and_ covered in panic sweat. At least he isn't hungry anymore.

They finally bring Adam back out to him, and he barely gets to be relieved about that before they start loading him up with shit: painkillers, antibiotics, instructions on how much of those to take and when -- "it's best if you administer the drugs for the first day," the nurse says, and no shit, because Adam is going to be _groggy, dizzy, nauseous, confused, achy_ , there's a whole list of side effects from the anesthesia, and another for the painkillers. He does the math on the pills and then double checks it twice with the nurse. He's pretty sure he's not going to fuck it up and kill Adam with an overdose, but -- maybe he should ask one more time.

Adam zones out through all of that, through the trip out to the car and Ronan shoving him into the passenger seat. He stays out of it most of the drive home. That's okay. That's just _grogginess_. Right?

Adam mumbles, "Ronan?"

The road's pretty empty. He spares a glance. Adam's eyes are open, not really focused on anything.

"Hey."

"Hey." At least Ronan thinks he says hey. Adam's not exactly enunciating his words. He frowns, like he can't tell what he said either. He lifts a hand up.

Ronan catches it before it can reach his face. "How about you don't poke your wounds."

"Wounds?"

"From your surgery? Kind of the whole point of today?"

"That happened already?"

"Yeah, that happened already." If this is _confusion_ it's a hell of an understatement.

"I don't remember it."

"You're not supposed to remember it. That's what the drugs are for."

Adam blinks a few times. His eyes fall to Ronan's hand, trace it up his arm and back to his face.

"You're driving," he says.

"You bullied me into it six weeks ago."

"You're _driving_ ," Adam says again, making some point only he can understand. Assuming he does understand it. "Me. Home."

"Yeah," Ronan says. "I'm driving you home."

Adam reaches up for his face again, but he's rubbing at his eyes and not at his mouth, so Ronan lets it go.

They pull up to the house. Adam doesn't move or show any sign that he's noticed where they are. Ronan walks around the car and gets the door for him.

"You opened my door."

"Yeah." Ronan wonders if the rest of the day is just going to be Adam narrating everything he does. It's better than Adam having a delayed allergic reaction to the meds or ripping all his stitches open, anyway. Although -- uh, shit. "Did you not want me to?"

"No," Adam says, sullen. He rubs at his eyes again, like maybe Ronan won't notice that he's teared up. "It's just nice of you."

Ronan exhales. He handled Gansey's _I-love-you-man_ -drunk ass after last year's Kentucky Derby party. He can handle this. "Okay, you're officially wasted. If I help you inside are you going to cry on me?"

Adam grumbles "maybe" like it's a threat.

Ronan gets him as far as the bedroom before he stops and refuses to be nudged along any further. "'m sorry."

"I'm not," Ronan says, "you're hilarious right now," although that's only part of it. He's worried if he tried to put any other words to it, to describe the strange heavy warm feeling in his chest, that he'd just bum Adam out even more.

So he grins like this is hilarious, because it is, and he coaxes Adam toward the bed, which is piled high with every pillow he could find. It's impossible to lie down at anything flatter than a forty-five degree angle.

Adam sits next to him and curls up against his chest, which, fucking finally. The tension eases out of Ronan for the first time since he woke up that morning.

"Sorry," Adam mumbles again. "I'm wasting our whole break together."

"Not your fault. You had to do the surgery now."

"Ngh. I _wanted_ to do it now." He says something after that, but Ronan can't interpret it. It's kind of surprising that he's understood as much as he has. Adam is not being clear, but then, Ronan listens pretty damn close whenever he speaks.

He runs his thumb across Adam's forehead, lightly. "House rules, Parrish. You gotta talk in English or Latin."

Adam pushes up off Ronan's chest, swaying and unsteady; there's _dizziness_. Ronan would worry about him falling off the bed, except he's already got an arm around him.

"I knew you'd take care of me," he says, and now he is enunciating, as much as he can. "That's why I wanted to do it now."

"Is that a big deal? Of course I'd take care of you."

Adam looks at him. That _you opened my car door for me_ expression is back. "But you're _good_ at it."

Ronan puts a hand on the back of his neck and gently guides him to lean on him again. "That's not something to get upset about. If I was shitty to you, then you could be upset."

"'m not upset."

"Can we pretend you are? The happy tears are kind of freaking me out."

"See? You're joking. To make me laugh." Adam thumps a hand against Ronan's thigh. He can't tell if that was supposed to be affectionate or aggressive. "You're better at this then I am."

"I mean, you're stoned and I'm not," Ronan says. "This is one time that I get to be sharper than you."

" _No_ ," Adam insists. "You're better at taking care of me than I am at -- getting care taken."

Ronan rests his face on the top of his head. Adam smells faintly _wrong_ , a touch of something alien and unpleasant lingering over him. He wonders if it would help to run his fingers through his hair. He wonders if the problem will solve itself with just a little more time at home.

"I thought you were getting pissed at me," Ronan admits. "For trying to help."

"You were showing off," Adam says.

Ronan smiles, crooked, all of his joy smushed up against Adam. "How was I showing off?"

"Researching and checking in on me and sending me things," Adam says. "That's showing off how good you are at caring. It's rude."

"Too bad for you, I don't give a shit if you think I'm rude."

Adam sighs. "I can't believe you bought me all that juice."

"Did you really drink it?"

" _Yes_ ," he says, as intensely as he can with his mouth full of gauze. "Every day. I can't even tell anymore if I like it or not. It did that thing. You know."

"Sure, the thing, obviously."

"It made me like it against my will."

Ronan pieces this together. "Parrish, are you saying the juice gave you Stockholm syndrome?"

"Sometimes I think _you_ gave me Stockholm syndrome," Adam mutters. "You don't make sense. It isn't possible to like someone this much." Ronan opens his mouth, his breath falling out of him without a sound, and then Adam adds, "you're just as bad as pineapple juice."

Ronan laughs and kisses the top of his head. "You need to take back what you said before. You are fucking _amazing_ at being taken care of, this is the best shit ever."

Adam glares at him through one barely open eye. "See, now you're just making me happy again."

"Right, I'm being rude," Ronan concedes. "You know how you could really get back at me, is if you took a nap, then I couldn't take care of you at all."

Adam mumbles something unintelligible and settles in against his chest. Ronan remembers just in time that one of the four hundred things Adam's not allowed to do is fall asleep with gauze in his mouth, so he pesters him for it before he lets him drift off.

It's a really good thing he's in love with Adam. That gauze is fucking nasty.

-

Adam wakes up after a couple hours, long enough that he looks grumpy instead of drugged. Ronan tosses him a protein shake. He breaks into it like -- well, like he hasn't eaten all day -- so Ronan lets him finish it and get most of a glass of water down before bugging him.

"How do you feel?"

"My mouth feels gross, but it doesn't really hurt. My brain's kind of fuzzy." Adam hesitates; Ronan can see him debating whether to ask or let it go. "Did I...say anything weird this morning?"

"You don't remember?"

He makes a face. "I think I might have cried about pineapple juice? I'm really hoping that was a dream."

"Nope," Ronan tells him. "Apparently you love it more than you thought humanly possible."

"Oh, god." Adam covers his face with his hands. "Please tell me you're lying."

"I wouldn't _lie_ to you," Ronan says. "I'm here to take care of you."

Adam glares through his fingers, ready to argue -- and then the fight drains out of him. "I know you are." His hands drop down and find their way to Ronan's sides. "Thank you."

"Don't worry about it. Someday I'll be a huge mess and you can take care of me."

Adam snorts. "Yeah, _someday_."

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this fic, you can [reblog it on tumblr](https://toast-the-unknowing.tumblr.com/post/190773494095/a-prompt-if-it-youd-like-no-pressure-adam)!


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